About David R. Koenig

Since he began his career in 1985, David R. Koenig's work has focused on helping organizations be more successful in achieving their goals through better risk-taking and better risk governance.  He spent the first half of his career building and overseeing complex firmwide and portfolio-specific risk management programs. His focus shifted in the early 2000s to the establishment and implementation of global best practices for risk governance at the board level and the general practices of risk management. 

Because of his innovative ideas, David has been invited to speak at more than 100 events, on five continents, and was named as one of the winners of the inaugural M-prize for management innovation in the category of Reinventing Leadership.

David has served on numerous boards, both for-profit and non-profit, and has advised board members and executives worldwide. His executive leadership roles have included serving as a chief executive officer and holding senior executive responsibilities to create and develop corporate risk management programs at three different companies. He has been responsible for the management of complex financial portfolios in excess of tens of billions of dollars in size, the risk oversight of a complete suite of public mutual funds for one of the nation's largest banks, and the development of the first firmwide risk management program in the mortgage banking business. He presently serves as a Member of the Executive Advisory Board at the Center for Advancing Corporate Performance.

David is the author of the critically acclaimed book Governance Reimagined: Organizational Design, Risk, and Value Creation - the first book in a three-book series on how people best work together and The Board Member's Guide to Risk - a highly accessible guide to risk governance best practices and the creation of value through the work of boards. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions, where he was the invited Special Editor of two issues. David has written numerous articles and chapters in textbooks. He's been quoted on Bloomberg, in Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and other leading publications and, very early in his career, was a regular guest on the Financial News Network (now CNBC).

He is the founder of the Directors and Chief Risk Officers group ("the DCRO"). The DCRO was formed in 2008 to focus on the top-level governance of risk in practice. Bringing together more than 2,000 leading board members, chief risk officers, and other c-level officers whose jobs include a fiduciary responsibility for governance and risk management, the DCRO assembles member perspectives from more than 120 countries. David led the work of the DCRO Qualified Risk Director Governance Council, which was responsible for the DCRO Qualified Risk Director Guidelines, the DCRO Compensation Committee Risk Governance Council, which was responsible for the DCRO Guiding Principles for Compensation Committees, and the DCRO Risk Committee Governance Council, which was responsible for the DCRO Guiding Principles for Board Risk Committees.

He is one of the founders of the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA), where he led that organization and the PRMIA Institute from their founding until 2007. By the time he handed over the reins, the organization had more than 45,000 members from over 180 countries, and annual revenues had grown from zero to over $2.5MM. He served as the Chair, Board of Directors of PRMIA, the Chair of that organization’s Ethics Committee, a member of its Academic Advisory Council, and a member of its Education and Standards Committee. He had oversight of the development of all publications, training programs, member and volunteer relations, and strategic planning. He was honored as the recipient of the PRMIA Higher Standard Award in 2008 - the top recognition bestowed on any member of the association.

David was a Mentor for the 2012 class of the acclaimed MiddCORE program of Middlebury College. He was also the only non-alumnus invited to be a member of the 2011 TRIUM MBA Term Project Executive Board (TRIUM is a joint program of NYU Stern School of Business, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and HEC School of Management, Paris). He has taught Corporate Finance and Investments courses at St. Olaf College.

He is a proud member of Rotary International and has earned multiple Paul Harris fellowships. He volunteers for Rotary Youth Exchange, the local Rotary Ethical Leadership Committee, and served on the Rotary District 5960 Ethics Committee.

David earned his M.A. in Economics from Northwestern University and his B.A. degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Miami University in Oxford, OH. His travels have taken him to nearly 40 countries, and he practices his work from an office in the beautiful college town of Northfield, MN.